New on DVD for Jan. 7: Thanks for Sharing, Inequality for All and more

Inequality for All: Four stars out of five — He’s a little man with a great big message: Robert Reich says the United States of America is betraying its fundamental ideology of equality by allowing the income gap to widen. Using one of Reich’s Ivy League lectures as the basic structure for his film, director Jacob Kornbluth follows Reich’s steady train of thought into every station — without missing a single chunk of America’s crumbling landscape along the way. The former labor secretary to Bill Clinton, as well as a respected adviser to several other Presidents (of both partisan stripes), Reich sets up two kinds of cycles: a virtuous cycle where the economic ladder is accessible and promotes a healthy society, and a vicious cycle, where the income gap is so wide it prevents social mobility and kills the American dream. Using interviews from the rich and the poor, the film articulates a compelling — if one-sided — argument about the need for a living wage, affordable education and health care that does not bankrupt the middle class. Special features unavailable.

Thanks for Sharing: Two and a half stars out of five — To be honest, I wasn’t all that thankful for the many shares this movie inflicted, whether it was the admission of sex addiction from an obese emergency doctor or the sight of Mark Ruffalo eating bugs at a boho party. A self-conscious grope into the folds of adult insecurities, this comic drama from Stuart Blumberg has an all-star cast, but a problematic plot because everyone is dealing with some kind of addiction. Tim Robbins plays a recovering alcoholic. Ruffalo’s character can’t have a TV or a computer in his room lest he come unzipped, and Pink shows off her tramp stamp as a gal trying to pull her life, and her legs, together. Even Gwyneth Paltrow gets her groove on as a breast cancer survivor looking to bring her sexy back in this intermittently earnest, but frequently irritating, drama that tries to cultivate compassion but just ends up trying our patience as it tries its patients. Special features include the making-of, audio commentary, gag reel and more.

I’m So Excited pushes the envelope of good taste, but fails to make the doomed-airplane scenario funny,

I’m So Excited!: One star out of five — Though Daft Punk recently resurrected the gold lame ghost of disco, Pedro Almodovar does nothing to revive the collective soul of the Pointer Sisters’ signature tune in the truly stupefying I’m So Excited! A sex comedy set on a mechanically challenged airliner, this movie featuring an ensemble of Spanish heavyweights pushes the envelope of good taste on the premise alone because it’s hard to make a doomed plane funny, especially without Leslie Nielsen. Moving from one poorly timed moment to the next, this over-the-top boy fantasy begins with the ground crew making a mistake that makes a safe landing risky for the pilots and passengers, and near-suicide for the viewer who has to sit through 90 minutes of narrative turbulence without a decent punchline. Special features include the making-of, trailer, creation of the crash site and more.

Closed Circuit: Three stars out of five — Nobody does Big Brother quite like the Brits. To wit, London has one of the highest concentration of closed circuit cameras in the world, and the U.K. has an average of one camera for every 14 people. That’s a whole lot of voyeuristic potential, but the looming threat of the all-seeing eye isn’t fully articulated in this stylish noir thriller from John Crowley as Eric Bana and Rebecca Hall play lawyers assigned to represent an alleged terrorist in a high-profile trial that has all of London looking for justice. Two heavyweights with a shared history, the lawyers start researching their case only to discover the strands of culpability stretch far and wide — possibly as far as the Prime Minister’s office. Now, with everyone watching, the sparring duo must hide the facts that could blow it all wide open. Despite an ambition to be a modern Rear Window, Closed Circuit never quite seals the deal and we can feel a draft as the lovers’ heat leaves the room. Special features unavailable.

Amy Seimetz, left, and Shane Carruth in Upstream Color

Upstream Color: Two stars out of five — Something crawled under Shane Carruth’s skin, and he’s trying to get it out. The Sundance-winning director of Primer who found himself stymied by Hollywood’s great big machine has returned to the drawing board to make another independent film that makes even less sense than his first. Some will take the non-linear format laced with images of female mutilation, hog farming and financial ruin as testament to Carruth’s avant-garde prowess, but the movie doesn’t actually say anything. It conveys a series of primal fears without a reasonable frame, mostly surrounding childbirth and marital responsibility. Guys tend to make abstract, panic-laden movies like this the first time they get married or become fathers, as witnessed by Eraserhead and The Fountain. There’s something undeniably compelling in such raw, uncensored fear, but no matter how you dice it — or surgically slice it — it still bears the indelible signs of childish denial. No special features.

The Act of Killing: Four stars out of five — One of the bigger buzz titles on the art-house circuit last year, this documentary from Joshua Oppenheimer and Christine Cynn take us into the minds of real mass murderers as they recreate their crimes for the camera. Such an act might seem like the very antithesis of the creative urge, but by asking the perpetrators to revisit their own cruelty in the name of filmmaking, this bizarre movie explores violence from an entirely novel perspective, and lets us see how much ego plays a part in every action — from combing our hair, to plunging sharp objects into each other’s flesh. Centered around the military coup in Indonesia more than 40 years ago, this documentary interviews the participants as well as the victims of the carnage, and even asks them to dramatize their own cruelty. Entirely surreal, and altogether unforgettable, The Act of Killing is pure horror, and all human. Special features include deleted scenes and more.

The Act of Killing, a documentary in which mass murderers re-create their crimes.